


When It's Over (When It's All Over, Only Then Can We Cry)

by Kila9Nishika



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie) Spoilers, Headcanon for JARVIS, Implied Purposeful Self-Imposed Starvation, Nobody Gets to be Happy, SPOILERS - Age of Ultron, Spoilers, Suicidal Thoughts, implied alcohol abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-12
Updated: 2015-05-12
Packaged: 2018-03-30 07:11:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3927598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kila9Nishika/pseuds/Kila9Nishika
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>MAJOR SPOILERS FOR AGE OF ULTRON!!!<br/>.<br/>.<br/>.<br/>.<br/>After it's over, after it's all over, he cries.  The only person who had ever cared was gone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When It's Over (When It's All Over, Only Then Can We Cry)

**Author's Note:**

> MAJOR MAJOR MAJOR SPOILERS FOR AGE OF ULTRON!!!!
> 
>  
> 
> Seriously depressing stuff ahead. Warnings for suicidal intent, mentions of death, and implied self-harm.
> 
> All section titles (not including the title of the fic) are taken from Elton John songs. Don't ask.

**Zero Hour, Nine AM**

When it’s over, when it’s all over, he leaves in a fancy car and hides in his fancy home and shuts the door (manually, now, forever after either dumb mechanical trickery or manual labor,) and tries to breathe through the terrible knot in his chest.

They don’t understand.

The tears come too swiftly for comfort, and he finds himself listening for the voice that isn’t there (anymore) because when has he ever broken and not had that support since that one day -

He wasn’t being _metaphorical_ when he’d said that someone had died.

In the empty, empty silence of his home (no voice to welcome him, no friends, no family, no _hope_ ) he cries.

At some point, he considers drinking.

He dismisses it.  If he drinks, there will be no faintly disappointed voice to tell him off.  No worried hum as - as -

He realizes that _food_ was also a thing that he had forgotten when the room begins to buzz and blur around him.

What does it matter?  The only person who had ever cared (Pepper left Rhodey left Obadiah betrayed Yinsen died Maria betrayed) was dead.

 

**Mars Ain’t the Kind of Place to Raise Your Kids**

“Can Mister Tony come back?”

Clint blinked up at his daughter, who had somehow - okay, he was best friends with Natasha, he _knew_ how - climbed onto the roof to get his attention.  “Mister Tony?” he asked, faintly amused at the nickname.

Lila nodded, her hair flying in her face.  “He was funny, and he fixed Mister Squeaky.”  She waved her hands in the air.  “He said that he’d build me a flying bike!”

Clint winced at the last promise, and snatched Lila off of the roof, climbing carefully down the ladder (be careful on a mission, thrice as careful with the kids).  “Maybe the bike can wait till you’re older, Lila.  Does Cooper have anything to say about this?”

Lila frowned.  “He isn’t happy that Mister Tony fixed Mister Squeaky, but he also thinks that Mister Tony was funny.  He also wants Doctor Bruce to come back, but Mommy said to not say anything about Doctor Bruce to Auntie Nat ‘cause it’ll make her sad.”

Setting his daughter on her feet, Clint thought for a moment.  It made sense that Cooper wouldn’t be pleased about the repair of Lila’s favorite toy robot, which made an annoying buzzing noise when it rolled around the house.  It also made sense that Cooper was more interested in Bruce than Tony - Natasha had spoken more about Bruce than Tony, the last few times she had come over before this last disaster, and Cooper hero-worshipped “Auntie Nat.”  And while neither of them were _Avengers_ anymore, they had been teammates, and Tony had never once acted badly around the kids.

“How about this,” Clint said, ruffling Lila’s hair.  “I’ll call him, and see if he has time to come over.  If he can’t, I’ll get Auntie Nat to bug him about it.  Okay?”

“Woohoo!”  Lila dashed back into the house, cheering.

Clint frowned.  Now he just had a phone call to make.

Hopefully, Laura wouldn’t be too upset about his decision to invite Tony Stark over without her input.

 

**It’s Just My Job Five Days A Week**

Pepper had just finished her _last_ pile of paperwork when her phone rang.

Her _phone_ rang.  At two o’clock in the _morning_.

Scowling, she glanced at the screen.  Her scowl deepened with confusion.  Since when did _anyone_ call her that JARVIS didn’t know?

Sighing, she picked up the phone.  “Hello?”

_“Um...Hi?  Who is this?”_

Pepper nearly dropped the phone.  Not only was someone calling her cell phone from an unknown number, but they _didn’t recognize her voice_?

“Virginia Potts, CEO of Stark Industries, Stark Incorporated, and BrightLite Limited,” she snapped.  “Who is _this_?”

_“Barton,”_ the voice replied, sounding faintly relieved.   _“Sorry, I thought maybe Stark had given me a fake number or something.”_

Barton, Barton, Barton was Agent Clint Barton, aka Hawkeye, former Avenger and hero of the Battle of Manhattan.  But why -

“Why did you call me?” Pepper asked, worry beginning to curl in her stomach.  “Did something happen to Tony?”

There was a long pause, and then Barton said _“What?”_

Pepper took a breath to repeat herself, but Barton continued speaking.

_“Stark said that this was_ his _number, that it would reach him and nobody else unless he was absolutely unreachable.  And why are you asking me about Stark?  We all went home two days ago.  Shouldn’t he be with you?”_

The knot in her chest went cold.  “Tony and I broke up almost six months ago.  I’ve been staying on the West Coast and he’s been staying on the East Coast and _what_  do you mean, this is his number?  What number did you dial?”

Barton recited a number, complete with two extensions and the specialized JARVIS password.  Pepper dropped the phone.

_“Ms. Potts?  Ms. Potts, are you alright?”_

Shaking, Pepper fumbled the phone back to her ear.  “Y-yes.  I’m - no, I’m not fine.”  Her voice broke.  “Barton, that _was_ Tony’s number.  The specialized, unique number that is the only phone number in existence guaranteed to reach Tony Stark.  The only -”  She took a moment, breathing hard.  “The only reason it would have redirected to me was if _none_ of Tony’s systems, tech, and computers were capable of reaching him.”

The last sentence exhausted her capability to speak, so Pepper just sat there, shaking, holding the phone.  Thankfully, Barton seemed just as surprised, if the startled sound he had made and the ensuing silence was any evidence.

_“How quickly can you get to New York?”_

Pepper blinked.  “I - I’m sorry, what?”

_“Look, last place he was known to be was New York.  First thing to do is to make sure that there’s not a simple and not-disastrous explanation.  So, either you or I go to New York.”_

Pepper grabbed a tablet, and began scrolling through her information.  “If I booked a flight now, I’d make it in about six hours.  But-”

_“That’s too long,”_ Barton cut in, sounding understanding.   _“And the reporters will be on you like flies on a corpse.  Look, I’ve got ways to get to New York in under two hours, but keep me posted from your end, ok?”_

Pepper nodded mutely, before realizing (when was the last time that she had been shaken enough to forget details?) that they only had an audio connection.  “I will.  And - thank you, Barton.”

_“Clint_ , _”_ the man said, muffled noises coming through the speaker.   _“If we’re gonna be doing crazy stuff, you can call me by my name.”_

 

**It’s Lonely Out in Space**

He’d killed him.  Ultron had _killed_ him.  And then -

And then he’d been forced to keep on, act blase, nothing has changed at all, stay on mission, because his darling, his _child_ wasn’t anything like Ultron, wasn’t anything like Vision, had been a secret greater and a soul brighter than any _human_ and -

And Ultron had killed him.

He can’t see the ceiling anymore, and his ears are ringing strangely.  It is strangely reminiscent of that time - that time when -

Secrets within secrets and he had said so much without saying anything at all - how do you say “I’m dying” when you’re on a mission to save the world?  So he’d plotted and planned, and styled a plan that would fill in his place when he was gone, even as his children scrambled to try to _cure_ him -

(you can’t cure old age and bad lifestyle, darlings)

And nobody had trusted him, but _what’s new_ so he had kept on -

Kept on -

He wonders if the tumor has taken over his entire left lung yet.  If he’ll stop breathing before his body runs out of fuel.

Wishes that it was still so easy to pluck out his heart.

Well.  The one that powers his cardiovascular system, anyway.

Thinks of his (his child’s) plans for a potential reprieve from the tumor -

Thinks of his (his child’s) plans for a potential cure for a dying liver -

Thinks of his child, who is dead.

Who is dead.

There’s a faint whining noise, like a keen without energy.

It takes him more than a moment to realize that it’s coming from his throat.

There’s another sound, but he can’t hear it.  It doesn’t matter, anyway.  The voice is all wrong.

 

**Everything About This House Was Born to Grow and Die**

Clint wasn’t sure what he had expected, speeding over New York City and landing on the landing pad at Avengers’ Tower, but it hadn’t been what he’d found.

The Tower was dark.

It had been almost two weeks since the chaotic aftermath of Ultron’s first attack, and there was no sign that any repairs had been done.

It had been almost a _week_ since the Avengers had split up for the last time, with a new team to follow them, and there was no sign that any repairs had been done.

This building was the home of Tony Stark, the manic inventor-engineer-genius, who couldn’t look at anything without attempting to improve it, and _there was no sign that any repairs had been done_.

That, more than anything else, was alarming.

He walked into the penthouse with absolutely no trouble, and jumped through the holes in the floors from one level to the next.

The elevators didn’t work.

_Nothing_ worked.

Finally, eighteen levels down from the penthouse, Clint found himself without any handy floor-holes, and searched out the stairwell.  Bludgeoning the door open, he made his way down.

The next floor was one that he had never seen.  It wasn’t one of the public floors, and it wasn’t one of the science floors.  The entire level was a single massive room, with no lights and no furniture.  It was, in fact, empty.

Except for the shadow sprawled on the floor.

Clint moved quickly and carefully, (in a building built by Stark, the floor could be holding any number of secrets,) but the room was exactly as it appeared to be - an empty room.

The shadow on the floor was also what Clint had first believed - a body.

“Stark?”  Clint grabbed the man’s shoulder, but received no response other than a slight hitch in breathing.  “Stark?”

When Stark didn’t respond to his repeated demands, Clint lifted the older man, and sprinted up the stairs to the more well-lit floor above.  Setting Stark carefully on the least-damaged sofa in the room, Clint nearly choked on his own dismay.

Stark looked like a corpse, only the faint uneven rise and fall of his chest belying the image.  His partially-closed eyes were bruised, his lips were chapped, and he looked starved.

Clint pulled out his phone, and dialled.

 

**To Fight the Violence We Must Be Brave**

Natasha had just removed her cell phone’s hands-free from her ear for the night when her phone buzzed against her desk, the screen flashing the stupid selfie that Clint had taken only two weeks ago.

“Clint?”

_“How close are you to the Tower?”_

Natasha grabbed her hands-free, shoved it on her ear, and pocketed her phone.  “About forty minutes by road, ten by jet.  Why?”

_“I need you, and a medic, ASAP.  Something’s happened to Stark.”_

Suddenly thankful that she hadn’t removed any of her weapons yet, Natasha kicked on her shoes and locked her door in one efficient step.  “What?  There have been no alerts.  Sitrep?”

_“I found him about a minute ago, we’re currently on Party Floor A.  Warning you, there have been no repairs done to the Tower, so you’re gonna have to land wherever you can.”_

Natasha hit the alert for Steve, stalking briskly down the halls of the base.  “Got it.  Call if anything happens, am gathering Cap and a medic.”

Steve appeared only a moment later, slightly breathless and looked worried.  For once, his hair was ruffled.

“What’s going on?  Do we need to call in the others?”

Natasha shook her head.  “There’s a situation at the Tower, something happened to Sta- to Tony.  Clint called me, asked for me and a medic, I called you, and am calling a medic as we speak.”  Her fingers flew over her phone.  “Whoever’s on duty will meet us at the jet.”

 

**Too Late to Save Myself from Falling**

“He’s incredibly dehydrated and probably hasn’t eaten in about a week, possibly two,” Dr. Elias stated, her pale eyes still slightly shell-shocked from realizing that she was going to be treating _the_ Tony Stark.  “His muscles are… about what you would expect from someone who has been in the precisely same position for five to seven days, and I have to assume that he was dehydrated and food-deprived before that, since there is no sign of bowel voidage.”

Clint shook his head, two feet away and looking almost as dangerous as Natasha imagined he might if someone threatened his children.  “None.  I thought he’d been dumped there, actually.  You’re saying he was there the whole time?”

Dr. Elias stepped away from the makeshift hospital bed, rubbing her face.  “Definitely.  Between that, the failing heart, failing liver, thin blood, and the tumor in his lung, I’m surprised that he’s still alive.”

Steve _swore_ , and Natasha felt as if the floor had been removed from beneath her.  “Those aren’t recent conditions,” she breathed.  “How long…?”

“Without records or further equipment, I couldn’t know for certain,” Dr. Elias hedged.

“Guess,” Steve said, his voice hard.  Natasha was a bit surprised by the reined-in anger she could hear in his voice.  “Give us an estimate.”

Dr. Elias took a step backward nervously.  “The thin blood, probably a year or two.  The liver, two or three.  The heart, at least a year.  The tumor, two or three years, with a minimum at eighteen months.”

“Damn,” Clint murmured.  “And he _fought_ with us?   _Why?_ ”

“I’d like to bring him back to the base for better care,” Dr. Elias stammered.  “If - if that’s alright?”

Steve nodded sharply, and Natasha followed suit.  Clint, Natasha noticed, looked faintly shocked.

She wasn’t sure if it was the fact that he’d found Stark, or the fact that Stark had fought alongside them with so many reasons to _stay out of the fight_.

Clint was right.   _Why did he fight with them?_

 

**Love Lies Bleeding**

“You’re sure about this?”

Wanda stared across the infirmary at the frail-looking man lying in the bed, hooked to over fifteen different machines.  “Yes,” she said, after a moment.  “You want to know, and he’s not waking up anytime soon.  If at all.”

To her surprise, Captain America flinched, looking stricken at the idea.  The Black Widow (Natasha, don’t _ever_ call me Nat,) placed a not-so-gentle hand on his wrist, and nodded.  

“If you’re certain,” the deadliest woman in the world said softly.  “I know that - not long ago, you -”

“Thought I hated him.”  Wanda shook her head.  “I’m not sure I’ll ever trust him, or like him, but I understand him enough to know that he was never the cause of my pain.  I have to do this, if only to find out what happened.”

Gathering her courage, Wanda crossed the room, and sat in the somewhat comfortable chair beside the bed containing Tony Stark.  She rested her hands on his forehead, and _reached_ -

_Into pain_

_Darkness_

_Blue light that was pain_

_Blue light that lit everything like cold air on ice_

_Blue_

_Red_

_Gold_

_Red_

_Blue_

_Red_

_So much red_

_So much blood_

_But_

_Not blood not red but gold, scattered and burning and destroyed_

_Killed_

_“I killed him.”_

_“There wasn’t anyone else in the Tower.”_

_Killed him_

_Killed him_

_Killed him._

**_HE KILLED HIM -_ **

_He killed -_

_Ultron killed -_

_My baby my baby my darling the only one who ever cared_

_The only one who stayed who loved me who cared_

_Shattered broken destroyed and the only hope_

_Gone gone gone the only hope THEY DIDN’T UNDERSTAND_

_what they saw was an attempt to try again not the attempt to SAVE HIM_

_but now_

_he is lost_

_he is lost_

_HE IS DEAD_

_MY BABY IS DEAD_

_MY BABY_

_Ultron killed him destroyed him shattered him for being_

_For **being**_

_But just because my baby doesn’t - didn’t - want to fight means that he must not have been REAL_

_Keep moving keep fighting let them assume_

_HE KILLED MY BABY AND NOBODY CARED_

_NOBODY CARES_

_I’m dying anyway and Pepper left but she’ll take care of the babies_

_My first still damaged my second still struggling my third destroyed_

_destroyed_

_KILLED_

_I tried to save him_

_Tried to save him_

_To save him_

_But MAGIC_

_and now he’s gone_

_he’s gone_

_gone_

_gone_

_my baby is dead._

 

**He Put a Pen to Paper for One Final Song**

Wanda tore herself from Tony’s consciousness with an almost physical jolt, falling to the floor and retching.

Gentle hands caught her, and she was startled (reassured) to see Clint’s worried face a few inches from her own.  “Are you alright?”

Wanda shook her head, tears clogging her throat and blurring her eyes.  The nausea slowly eased, but she continued to shake.

“What happened?  Should we call Dr. Elias?”

Wanda shook her head again, and took a shuddery breath.

“I feel,” she said, “Like the worst sort of villain ever.”

Three faces looked at her blankly.  Behind her, Wanda could still feel the whirl of torment hidden behind the twisted features of a tired man.  Carefully (nervously tentatively) she reached out just a tiny bit, plucking the last bit of information necessary to ask the appropriate questions.

“I worked for a _killer_ ,” Wanda spat, shaking her head, trying to control herself.  Ask the question, ask the question.  “A killer of _innocents_.”  Clint opened his mouth, probably to say something comforting, but Wanda pushed away, standing shakily on her own.  “Who was Jarvis?”

The silence was deafening.  Natasha, Wanda noted, had a faintly confused but slowly dawning expression in her eyes.  “A computer,” she said hoarsely, with an almost questioning note to her voice.

Wanda frowned, and sat down on the edge of Tony’s bed.  “No...no.  He wasn’t.  I mean, maybe you thought he was, but he wasn’t.”  She hesitated.  “Hold on, I’m going to try to make this something digestible for your heads.”  

It was like an illusion, like pulling out a person’s fears, but not, because she was just converting the chaos of grieving man (father?) into understandable thought.

_This is why he thought that he could make an AI protector of the world_

_This_

_A child as intelligent as himself_

_Born from binary and computer codes but so much **more**_

_Almost twenty-five years old and killed_

_Killed by his own failure_

_But nobody else knew that his child was a **child**_

_And not a computer_

_Nobody listened when he said_

_That someone had been **killed**_

_He had to keep fighting_

_To avenge his son_

_To protect the world_

_Because it was expected_

_Because nobody would understand that he needed to mourn_

_And for a brief moment_

_his child was alive again_

**_alive!_ **

_And he could_

_he could save him but_

_the Mind Stone_

_Magic_

_Thor_

_The HYDRA kids and Cap_

_and suddenly VISION_

_and Vision was wonderful_

_perhaps something like a step-grandson_

_But now his child was lost_

_truly lost_

_gone_

_gone_

_killed_

Wanda cut the output before she lost control - Tony’s agony was so close to the surface, so visceral, that she had only barely managed to do as much as she had.

She opened her eyes -

Natasha looked heartbroken (perhaps for the first time in her life, Wanda thought).

Clint’s eyes had gone dull, much like she expected her own were.

Captain America looked shattered.

A long noise pierced the shaken silence, breaking the monotonous _beep-beep_ that had filled the background.

Dr. Elias burst into the room, and she and Clint began doing things that Wanda didn’t quite understand (she hadn’t ever taken any classes on medicine or first-aid).

What she did understand was the sudden feeling of relief, and peace, from the mind still partially connected to her own.

The noise ended.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Headcanon, why did you do this to me?????


End file.
